Sensation and

Perception

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 Sensation
Sensing the World:
Some Basic Principles
▪ Thresholds
▪ Sensory Adaptation

Vision
▪ The Stimulus Input: Light Energy
▪ The Eye
▪ Visual Information Processing
▪ Color Vision
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Hearing
▪ The Stimulus Input: Sound Waves
▪ The Ear
▪ Hearing Loss and Deaf Culture

Other Important Senses

▪ Touch
▪ Pain
▪ Taste
▪ Smell
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Perceptual Organization
▪ Form Perception
▪ Depth Perception
▪ Motion Perception
▪ Perceptual Constancy

4
Perceptual Interpretation
▪ Sensory Deprivation and Restored
Vision
▪ Perceptual Adaptation
▪ Perceptual Set
▪ Perception and the Human Factor

5
Is There Extrasensory Perception?
▪ Claims of ESP
▪ Premonitions or Pretensions?
▪ Putting ESP to Experimental Test

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 Sensation & Perception
How do we construct our representations of the
external world?

To represent the world, we must detect physical

energy (a stimulus) from the environment and
convert it into neural signals. This is a process
called sensation.

When we select, organize, and interpret our

sensations, the process is called perception.
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 Bottom-up Processing
Analysis of the stimulus begins with the sense
receptors and works up to the level of the brain
and mind.

Letter “A” is really a black blotch broken down into

features by the brain that we perceive as an “A.”
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 Top-Down Processing
Information processing guided by higher-level
mental processes as we construct perceptions,
drawing on our experience and expectations.

THE CHT
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 Making Sense of Complexity
Our sensory and perceptual processes work
together to help us sort out complex images.

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“The Forest Has Eyes,” Bev Doolittle
 Sensing the World
Senses are nature’s gift that suit an organism’s
needs.

A frog feeds on flying insects; a male silkworm

moth is sensitive to female sex-attractant odor; and
we as human beings are sensitive to sound
frequencies that represent the range of human
voice.

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 Exploring the Senses

What stimuli cross our threshold for

conscious awareness?

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 Psychophysics
A study of the relationship between physical
characteristics of stimuli and our psychological
experience with them.
Psychological
Physical World
World
Light Brightness

Sound Volume

Pressure Weight

Sugar Sweet
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 Sensory Adaptation
Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of
constant stimulation.

Put a band aid on your arm and after awhile

you don’t sense it.
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Now you see, now you don’t

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Vision

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 Transduction

In sensation, the transformation of stimulus energy

(sights, sounds, smells) into neural impulses.

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Physical Characteristics of Light

1. Wavelength (hue/color)

2. Intensity (brightness)

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 Wavelength (Hue)

Hue (color) is the

dimension of
color determined
by the
wavelength of the
light.

Wavelength is the
distance from the
peak of one wave
to the peak of the
next.

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 Wavelength (Hue)

Violet Indigo Blue Green Yellow Orange Red

400 nm 700 nm
Short wavelengths Long wavelengths

Different wavelengths of light result

in different colors.
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 Intensity (Brightness)

Intensity:
Amount of
energy in a
wave
determined by
the amplitude.
It is related to
perceived
brightness.

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 Intensity (Brightness)

Blue color with varying levels of intensity.

As intensity increases or decreases, blue color
looks more “washed out” or “darkened.”
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The Eye

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 Parts of the eye
1. Cornea: Transparent tissue where light enters
the eye.
2. Iris: Muscle that expands and contracts to
change the size of the opening (pupil) for light.
3. Lens: Focuses the light rays on the retina.
4. Retina: Contains sensory receptors that process
visual information and sends it to the brain.

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 The Lens
Lens: Transparent
structure behind the
pupil that changes shape
to focus images on the
retina.

Accommodation: The
process by which the
eye’s lens changes shape
to help focus near or far
objects on the retina.
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 Retina
Retina: The light-
sensitive inner
surface of the eye,
containing receptor
rods and cones in
addition to layers of
other neurons
(bipolar, ganglion
cells) that process
visual information.

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 Optic Nerve, Blind Spot & Fovea
Optic nerve: Carries neural impulses from the eye to the
brain. Blind Spot: Point where the optic nerve leaves the
eye because there are no receptor cells located there.
Fovea: Central point in the retina around which the eye’s
cones cluster.

http://www.bergen.org 27
 Test your Blind Spot
Use your textbook. Close your left eye, and fixate
your right eye on the black dot. Move the page
towards your eye and away from your eye. At
some point the car on the right will disappear due
to a blind spot.

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 Photoreceptors

E.R. Lewis, Y.Y. Zeevi, F.S Werblin, 1969

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 Bipolar & Ganglion Cells
Bipolar cells receive messages from
photoreceptors and transmit them to ganglion
cells, which converge to form the optic nerve.

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 Visual Information Processing
Optic nerves connect to the thalamus in the
middle of the brain, and the thalamus connects to
the visual cortex.

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 Feature Detection
Nerve cells in the visual cortex respond to
specific features, such as edges, angles, and
movement.
Ross Kinnaird/ Allsport/ Getty Images

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 Shape Detection
Specific combinations of temporal lobe activity
occur as people look at shoes, faces, chairs and
houses.
Ishai, Ungerleider, Martin and Haxby/ NIMH

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 Visual Information Processing
Processing of several aspects of the stimulus
simultaneously is called parallel processing. The
brain divides a visual scene into subdivisions such
as color, depth, form, movement, etc.

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From Sensation to Recognition

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 Color Vision
Trichromatic theory: Young and von Helmholtz
suggested that the eye must contain three receptors
that are sensitive to red, blue and green colors.

Standard stimulus

Comparison stimulus

Max Medium Low

Blue Green Red 36

 Color Blindness
Genetic disorder in which people are blind to
green or red colors. This supports the
Trichromatic theory.

Ishihara Test 37
 Opponent Colors

Gaze at the middle of the flag for about 30

Seconds. When it disappears, stare at the dot and report
whether or not you see Britain's flag. 38
Hearing

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 Hearing

The Stimulus Input: Sound Waves

Sound waves are compressing and expanding air
molecules.

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Sound Characteristics

1. Frequency (pitch)
2. Intensity (loudness)

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 Dr. Fred Hossler/ Visuals Unlimited
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The Ear
 The Ear
Outer Ear: Collects and sends sounds to the
eardrum.

Middle Ear: Chamber between eardrum and

cochlea containing three tiny bones (hammer,
anvil, stirrup) that concentrate the vibrations
of the eardrum on the cochlea’s oval window.

Inner Ear: Innermost part of the ear,

containing the cochlea, semicircular canals,
and vestibular sacs.
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 Cochlea
Cochlea: Coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the
inner ear that transforms sound vibrations to
auditory signals.

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 Intensity (Loudness)

Intensity
(Loudness):
Amount of energy
in a wave,
determined by the
amplitude, relates
to the perceived
loudness.

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 46

Richard Kaylin/ Stone/ Getty Images

120dB

70dB
Loudness of Sound
 Frequency (Pitch)

Frequency (pitch):
The dimension of
frequency
determined by the
wavelength of
sound.

Wavelength: The
distance from the
peak of one wave
to the peak of the
next.
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 Localization of Sounds
Because we have two ears, sounds that reach
one ear faster than the other ear cause us to
localize the sound.

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 Localization of Sound
1. Intensity differences
2. Time differences

Time differences as small as 1/100,000 of a second

can cause us to localize sound. The head acts as a
“shadow” or partial sound barrier.

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 Touch
The sense of touch is a mix of four distinct skin
senses—pressure, warmth, cold, and pain.
Bruce Ayers/ Stone/ Getty Images

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 Touch
Outline
• Skin is the largest sense organ
• There are receptors for pressure,
temperature, and pain
• Touch appears to be important not just as
a source of information, but as a way to
bond with others
• Touch Localization
– Touch localization depends on the relative
lengths of the pathways from the stimulated
parts to the brain.
 Skin Senses
Only pressure has identifiable receptors. All other
skin sensations are variations of pressure, warmth,
cold and pain.

Pressure Vibration Vibration

Burning hot Cold, warmth and pain 52

 PAIN
• Pain tells the body that something has
gone wrong. Usually pain results from
damage to the skin and other tissues

• Pain is the only sense that does NOT have

sensory adaptation

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 Pain
CONGENITAL INSENSITIVITY TO PAIN
Rare disease in which the afflicted person feels no pain.
i.e. hot stove, appendix

AP Photo/ Stephen Morton

Ashley Blocker (right) feels neither pain 54
nor extreme hot or cold.
PAIN: Biopsychosocial Influences

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 Gate-Control Theory
Melzack and Wall (1965, 1983) proposed that our
spinal cord contains neurological “gates” that
either block pain or allow it to be sensed.

Gary Comer/ PhototakeUSA.com

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 Pain Control
Pain can be controlled by a number of therapies
including, drugs, surgery, acupuncture, exercise,
hypnosis, and even thought distraction.

©Hunter Hoffman, www.vrpain.com

Todd Richards and Aric Vills, U.W.
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 Taste
Traditionally, taste sensations consisted of sweet,
salty, sour, and bitter tastes. Recently, receptors for
a fifth taste have been discovered called “Umami”.

Sweet Sour Salty Bitter Umami

(Fresh
Chicken)

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 Sensory Interaction
When one sense affects another sense, sensory
interaction takes place. So, the taste of strawberry
interacts with its smell and its texture on the
tongue to produce flavor.

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 Smell
Like taste, smell is a chemical sense. Odorants
enter the nasal cavity to stimulate 5 million
receptors to sense smell. Unlike taste, there are
many different forms of smell.

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 Age, Gender, and Smell
Outline
Ability to identify smell peaks
during early adulthood, but steadily
declines after that. Women are
better at detecting odors than men.
 Smell and Memories

The brain region for

smell (in red) is closely
connected with the
brain regions involved
with memory (limbic
system). That is why
strong memories are
made through the sense
of smell.

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 Body Position and Movement
The sense of our body parts’ position and
movement is called kinesthesis. The vestibular
sense monitors the head (and body’s) position.

http://www.heyokamagazine.com

Bob Daemmrich/ The Image Works

Whirling Dervishes Wire Walk 63
 Vestibular Senses
Outline
• Vestibular senses provide information
about equilibrium and body position
• Fluid moves in two vestibular sacs
• Vestibular organs are also responsible for
motion sickness
• Motion sickness may be caused by
discrepancies between visual information
and vestibular sensation
 Why do we feel dizzy?
Outline
• The inner parts are open spaces filled with fluid. The
inside walls of the spaces are covered with tiny hairs.
Each hair is connected to a nerve cell that carries signals
to the brain. When the head moves, the fluid sloshes
around and bends the hairs. As each hair bends, it
makes its nerve cell send a signal, telling the brain about
that movement.

• When we spin around, the fluid starts spinning, too. That

gives us the sensation of spinning. When we stop, the
fluid keeps moving (and bending tiny hairs and signaling
the brain). That may make us feel that we are spinning
backward. We call that "feeling dizzy."
 Proprioception/Kinesthetic
Outline
Sense
• from Latin proprius, meaning "one's own", "individual"
and perception, is the sense of the relative position of
neighboring parts of the body and strength of effort being
employed in movement.
 Perceptual Organization

How do we form meaningful perceptions

from sensory information?

We organize it. Gestalt psychologists

showed that a figure formed a “whole”
different than its surroundings.

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 Form Perception
Organization of the visual field into objects
(figures) that stand out from their surroundings
(ground).

Time Savings Suggestion, © 2003 Roger Sheperd.

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 Grouping
After distinguishing the figure from the ground,
our perception needs to organize the figure into
a meaningful form using grouping rules.

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 Grouping & Reality
Although grouping principles usually help us construct
reality, they may occasionally lead us astray.

Magazine. .© 1983 PCS Games Limited Partnership

Both photos by Walter Wick. Reprinted from GAMES
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 Depth Perception
Depth perception enables us to judge distances.
Gibson and Walk (1960) suggested that human
infants (crawling age) have depth perception. Even
newborn animals show depth perception.
Innervisions

Visual Cliff 71
 Binocular Cues
Retinal disparity: Images from the two eyes differ. Try
looking at your two index fingers when pointing them
towards each other half an inch apart and about 5 inches
directly in front of your eyes. You will see a “finger
sausage” as shown in the inset.

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 Monocular Cues
Relative Size: If two objects are similar in size, we
perceive the one that casts a smaller retinal image
to be farther away.

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 74
Interposition: Objects that occlude (block) other
objects tend to be perceived as closer.

Rene Magritte, The Blank Signature, oil on canvas,

Monocular Cues

National Gallery of Art, Washington. Collection of

Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon. Photo by Richard Carafelli.
 Monocular Cues
Relative Height: We perceive objects that are higher in our
field of vision to be farther away than those that are lower.

adapted from stimuli that appered in Vecrera et al., 2002

Image courtesy of Shaun P. Vecera, Ph. D.,
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 Monocular Cues
Relative motion: Objects closer to a fixation point
move faster and in opposing direction to those
objects that are farther away from a fixation point,
moving slower and in the same direction.

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 Monocular Cues
Linear Perspective: Parallel lines, such as railroad
tracks, appear to converge in the distance. The
more the lines converge, the greater their
perceived distance.

from cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.

© The New Yorker Collection, 2002, Jack Ziegler
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 Monocular Cues
Light and Shadow: Nearby objects reflect more light into
our eyes than more distant objects. Given two identical
objects, the dimmer one appears to be farther away.

All rights reserved.

S. Ramachandran. © 1988 by Scientific American, Inc.
From “Perceiving Shape From Shading” by Vilayaur
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 Perceptual Constancy

Perceiving objects as unchanging even as

illumination and retinal images change.

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 Color Constancy
Perceiving familiar objects as having consistent
color even when changing illumination filters
the light reflected by the object.

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Color Constancy
 Size-Distance Relationship
The distant monster (below, left) and the top red
bar (below, right) appear bigger because of
distance cues.

Alan Choisnet/ The Image Bank

From Shepard, 1990

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 Size-Distance Relationship
Both girls in the room are of similar height.
However, we perceive them to be of different
heights as they stand in the two corners of the
room.

Both photos from S. Schwartzenberg/ The Exploratorium

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 Ames Room

The Ames room is designed to demonstrate the size- 83

distance illusion.
 Lightness Constancy

The color and brightness of square A and B are the same.

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 Perceptual Interpretation
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) maintained that
knowledge comes from our inborn ways of
organizing sensory experiences.

John Locke (1632-1704) argued that we learn to

perceive the world through our experiences.

How important is experience in shaping our

perceptual interpretation?

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 Facial Recognition

After blind adults

regained sight, they were
able to recognize distinct
features, but were unable
to recognize faces.
Normal observers also

Courtesy of Richard LeGrand

show difficulty in facial
recognition when the
lower half of the pictures
are changed.
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 Sensory Deprivation

Kittens raised
without exposure to
horizontal lines later
had difficulty
perceiving horizontal
bars.

Blakemore & Cooper (1970)

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 Perceptual Adaptation

Visual ability to adjust

to an artificially
displaced visual field,

Courtesy of Hubert Dolezal

e.g., prism glasses.

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 Perceptual Set
A mental predisposition to perceive one thing
and not another. What you see in the center
picture is influenced by flanking pictures.

From Shepard, 1990.

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 Perceptual Set
Other examples of perceptual set.

Frank Searle, photo Adams/ Corbis-Sygma

Dick Ruhl
(a) Loch ness monster or a tree trunk;
(b) Flying saucers or clouds?
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 Context Effects
Context can radically alter perception.

Is the “magician cabinet” on the floor or hanging from the

ceiling? 91
 Cultural Context
Context instilled by culture also alters
perception.

To an East African, the woman sitting is balancing a metal

box on her head, while the family is sitting under a tree. 92
 Perception Revisited
Is perception innate or acquired?

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Is There Extrasensory Perception?
Perception without sensory input is called
extrasensory perception (ESP). A large percentage
of scientists do not believe in ESP.

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 Claims of ESP
1. Telepathy: Mind-to-mind communication. One
person sending thoughts and the other
receiving them.
2. Clairvoyance: Perception of remote events,
such as sensing a friend’s house on fire.
3. Precognition: Perceiving future events, such as
a political leader’s death.

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